syzygy_dw | Entries tagged with books

I just got seven Big Finish Short Trips books in the mail! Woot! I bought a bunch of them on-line, when they announced that as of January 1st, 2010, they will no longer have the license to carry the Short Trips series. They arrived today!

It's like Christmas all over again!

...and I'm cheating and doing a meme, which I stole from

calapine .

( But it's a meme about books! )

Current Location: home

One of my co-workers has dared me to read Twilight. She thinks I am such a book snob that I will not be able to finish it. I am on page 12, and I already want to punch Bella Swan. It would give her something real to whine about.

( Seriously, I want to punch her )

Current Mood: apathetic

I've been tagged by

nonelvis for the following book meme:

Grab the nearest book, open to page 123, find the fifth sentence. Then post the next three sentences. Tag five people and post a comment.

I'm at work right now, on my lunch break. I work in a book store, so there are plenty of books at hand. It just so happens that the book closest to me is a book I have ordered for myself, but have yet to pick up. It's waiting for me at the server computer in the back of the store, where I usually have lunch and search teh intarwebs. The book is Jane Austen: The Complete Novels, and page 123 falls in Sense and Sensibility:

It is merely a melancholy consideration. Born to the prospect of such affluence! I cannot conceive a situation more deplorable.

Jane Austen's works are always popular here at the store, and we have a hard time keeping them in stock! It's amazing how her books have endured. I recently read Pride and Prejudice, and the character of Mrs Bennett struck a chord with me. Everyone sees her as a comic figure, interfering in the lives of her daughters. It's easy to forget, from our perspective in the 21st century, how her preoccupation with finding husbands for her daughters wasn't just her being meddlesome. It was a necessity. She had no sons to provide for their unmarried sisters, and girls couldn't inherit. If they didn't marry, the Bennett girls would have been left destitute once Mr Bennett died.

Jane Austen: The Complete Novels is a gorgeous volume. It's a blue leather-bound hardcover, with gold-edged pages and a ribbon bookmark. It's $21.99 Canadian, too, which is about a third of the price one would expect to pay for a book like this. I ordered it for myself because I have a weakness for books in general, and beautiful books in particular. I also like omnibus editions. I've been thinking about collecting Jane Austen's works, but so far all I have at home are Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

And now for the tagging. I call on the following people to answer this meme:

eponymous_rose,

lizbee,

laeb,

iko, and

shaxophile. Have fun!. o

Current Location: bookstore
Current Music: Jack Johnson

Tonight, I bring you two books that have nothing whatsoever to do with Doctor Who. And yet....

(Oh, there are S4 spoilers in the first one)

( The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie )
( The Footprints of God by Greg Iles )

Current Location: Home
Current Music: OK Go: Here it Goes Again

Dear Book-Buying Public,

Please stop asking why books in Canada are still so much more expensive than books in the US, even though our dollar is currently worth more. Moreover, stop giving the people behind the counter so much grief about it. There is nothing we can do. We do not set the price of books. Getting mad at us will change nothing.

Just about everything is still more expensive here than in the States. It's just more obvious with books, because the prices are printed on the cover. The Canadian dollar fluctuates too much for us to change the price of books to reflect it. We would have to change the price every day.

Books that are available now are more expensive because the price of the book was fixed long before it was printed. So when you see a book that has a US price of $7.99 and a Canadian price of $10.99, it's because when that book was priced, our dollar was still low. When the store bought that book, it paid the price as it was then. So if the Canadian price was $10.99 retail, that was the price that appeared on the store's invoice, even if the book was ordered last week.

We will not really see a big difference in the price of books until at least the new year, possibly later. The books that are being printed now for spring release will likely reflect the Canadian dollar as it is now, even if it goes down again by the time the book is released.

The rise of the Canadian dollar is not lining the pockets of your average independent bookseller. As a matter of fact, they are actually losing money. In response to customer complaints, small stores are giving out discounts they can't afford. They are making less money for books they paid for when the dollar was low. We are starting to see things change. Some distributors are starting to charge the stores less, meaning the store can charge you less than the price printed on the cover. This is still the exception to the rule. For the most part, if you are paying less than the price printed on the book, it's because the store is accepting the loss.

Please understand that the people behind the counter share your anger over this. We are not just bookstore employees, we are also book lovers, and this price difference affects us as well.

Thank you,

A Bookstore Employee.

Current Mood: drained

So, in case I hadn't mentioned it before, I work in a book store. I plan events like book signings and Potter parties, and do the store's PR. Sometimes I work with the Literary and Historical Society, which houses the city's only English-language library, when they have author events. I bring books for the attendees to buy and have signed.

Last night, the Lit & His hosted two poets and a novelist from Calgary. The authors' publicist originally contacted the store to do an event, but Tuesday afternoons are terrible for book signings at the store, especially with unknown writers. So I asked the library if they wanted to do it, and they were thrilled to. Sadly, because it was a Tuesday and nobody knows these authors, there was only one attendee. But the authors said that even so, Quebec City was the best stop on their book tour so far.

Because it was just the three authors, their friend, myself, two girls who work at the library and the woman who showed up to hear them speak, we all sat around a table and had tea and cookies while the authors read from their books. We had a discussion after each reading, and it was really a lot more fun than most book signings I've been to. The authors were more relaxed, and it was a really friendly and fun atmosphere. It was more like having a bunch of friends over and having a chat than a book signing.

Afterward, we walked up to a local bar (me, with my inconvenient box of books on a little luggage cart) and had some drinks and chatted some more about everything. I discovered one of the poets is almost as geeky as me-- Except he prefers Battlestar Galactica to Doctor Who. Poor sod. He doesn't know what he's missing! The other, with her pink hair and orange Chuck Taylors, is recently married, loves to bake, and managed to get me to promise her the recipe for my chocolate mocha spice anniversary cupcakes. She in turn, will send me the recipe for the world's easiest pie crust. She also likes tall skinny geeks (in fact, she married one), and agrees with me that David Tennant is fucking hot. The novelist and I discussed books. His favourite book in the world is Love in the Time of Cholera, so I reached into my bag (it's bigger on the inside) and pulled out my copy, which I think made me his lifelong friend.

I hope the three of them have a fabulous time in Quebec City, and have a lot of success on their book tour.

I'm in a book club. We get together once a month or so, discuss books and eat. It's a good arrangement. I like these women, we have fun when we get together, and the books we pick are usually really great.

But I have a confession: I can't remember the last time I finished one of the books.

In my defense, the last one was huge. It was supposed to be a summer read, but I got it about three weeks before the September meeting, and despite dedicating every free moment to it, I didn't even make it one quarter of the way through.

I don't sit around reading as much as I used to. Time was, I could go through three or four books a week. But now, if I pick up a book, it's because I really want to read it. While the book choices we've had with the book club have been great, I guess having a deadline imposed on my reading is making it feel too much like work. I put down a book I was really enjoying so I could read the book club selection. I think I may resent it just a little bit.

Maybe I just have a short attention span. Maybe if we had a movie-watching club...

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Entries tagged with books

Books!

It's my first post in a while...

Dear Bella: STFU already

Book Meme!

Books that have nothing to do with Doctor Who

Books, the Canadian Dollar, and You

Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors

Book Club

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